Improving operational efficiency has become an increasingly high priority for many businesses. In particular, the increasing cost of energy resources, such as fuel, and recent trends toward improving environmental sustainability have made reducing the consumption of energy resources essential for many businesses to maintain a competitive advantage in their respective industries. Likewise, volatile economic climates have increased competition in various industry sectors and prompted competing businesses to provide better services at a lower cost. As a result, many businesses are searching for ways to improve the efficiency of their existing employees and staff in order to reduce costs associated with human resources and provide improved service to customers.
As business emphasis on operational efficiency has grown, so too has the development of technology capable of monitoring various operational characteristics. For example, businesses can use GPS (or other GNSS systems) and RFID technology to track the location of people and items and generate data representative of those locations in relation to time. In addition, telematics devices are currently used in vehicles to capture information/data relating to various vehicle dynamics, such as fuel consumption and location. Similarly, businesses can provide hand held devices (e.g., portable computers, mobile phones) to employees to capture information/data relating to the employee locations and activities in relation to time. Computer systems can also be used to track employee activity independent of location (e.g., systems with time keeping software used in office environments, manufacturing systems used in plants to track and manage a manufacturing process).
Although such technology allows businesses to capture large amounts of operational data reflecting a variety of operational characteristics, many businesses are unable to effectively utilize such data to improve efficiencies. This problem is commonly the result of an inability to effectively translate otherwise overwhelming amounts of data into a format that is meaningful in the context of analyzing a particular efficiency. Thus, there is a need in the art for improved systems and methods for capturing and evaluating operational data in order to improve operational efficiencies in a variety of business contexts.